The Failure Mode and Effect Analysis type plan,
known as a HACCP, will be required by companies in the
food industry working within a quality-assurance legislative
framework. Due to the nature of the industry, every
plant is different and legislation requires each one
should be considered as an individual case, therefore
it is not possible to sell a "One Size Fits All" Off
the Shelf system. This calls for a system that has to
be individually implemented that maps onto the factory's
processes.
The plan has to achieve a legislative standard,
encapsulating parameters that are specific to the types
of product, the types of equipment and the industry
knowledge of the particular sector. In the past, the
implementation of such a system has been costly because
it incurred a lot of travelling. Expertise (normally
in the form of consultants) has to be brought in, many
of the plants are in remote rural locations, experts
have to acquire information specific to the plant for
the staff to put into the system. All in all a very
costly and onerous process; consultant friendly, but
not very client friendly. Not very affordable, and if
a plant undertook the exercise once, they didn't necessarily
update inline with their equipment upgrades thus nullifying
their previous work.
Basically the project involved producing a framework
for performing the consultant-led study so that the
plant staff could be led step by step through the process
making sure that all elements in the process were covered.
Links had to be provided to areas of expertise so that
remote working between consultant and plant could be
carried out at a far lower cost, allowing international
customers, trade/industry associations, professional
bodies and other interested parties regardless of physical
location to participate in this process and ensure that
the process is progressing under the required framework.
A consequence: the concept allows for individual stakeholders
to collaborate remotely in the derivation of plant processes
at an early stage, yielding closer co-operation along
supply chains and improved consensus building in time
and cost sensitive environments.
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